Resonances: Performing the AE Smith collection

Pip Thompson – Violin/Curator

Pip Thompson is a longstanding member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and Canberra Strings, performing regularly with these ensembles. Since 2021 she has also played with the Phoenix Collective Quartet, maintaining an active performance schedule in Sydney, Canberra and the Central Coast.

A graduate of the Canberra School of Music, Pip has a passion for Eastern European music and has performed at major Australian folk festivals, including the National Folk Festival and WOMADelaide with Romanian band Super Rats. In 2022 she received a Critics’ Circle Award for ‘consistent excellence over a wide range of styles.’

Douglas Macnicol – Violin

Douglas Macnicol, a Canberra native, won third prize in the National Youth Concerto Competition at 16 with the Bruch Concerto. He went on to study with Igor Ozim at the Musikhochschule Köln and with Leif Jørgensen in Olso, performing with the Oslo Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Stavanger Symphony orchestras.

Since returning to Australia, Douglas has worked as a freelance musician, performing solo recitals, and with chamber and symphony orchestras, including as Principal Second Violin and Principal Viola with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. He also plays with the gypsy jazz group Lulu Swing and recently earned a doctorate for his thesis on the early history of the Paris Conservatoire.

Lucy Carrigy-Ryan – Viola

Lucy Carrigy-Ryan enjoys an active freelance career in orchestral, solo and chamber music. She studied music, Spanish and law at the Australian National University before joining the Canberra Symphony Orchestra in 2010. In 2013 Lucy earned a scholarship at the Emilio Balcarce Tango Orchestra school in Argentina, followed by further studies at the Stauffer Academy in Italy and the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Switzerland, where she graduated with a Master of Viola Performance with high distinction.

Lucy has performed with orchestras across Australia and as a soloist with the National Capital Orchestra, Musica da Camera, and alongside violinist Barbara Gilby with Canberra Sinfonia. She regularly performs with Canberra Strings and other chamber music ensembles.

Samuel Payne – Cello

Since moving to Canberra in 2017, Samuel Payne has been a regular performer with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, CSO and an active chamber musician and teacher. He studied cello at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. A former member of the Australian Youth Orchestra, Samuel has played with many of Australia’s top orchestras, including the Opera Australia Orchestra, the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, and the Sydney Symphony Sinfonia.

In 2015 he toured India with the Australian World Orchestra as an academy student. Samuel has participated in a range of masterclasses with renowned cellists and chamber music ensembles, including Steven Isserlis, Gautier Capuçon, Alban Gerhardt, Torlief Thedéen, the Borodin, Australian and Goldner String Quartets, and the Tinalley Quartet.

Martha Sear

Dr Martha Sear is a senior curator at the National Museum of Australia. She was lead curator for the Great Southern Land gallery which opened in 2022 and worked on the Museum’s Journeys and Landmarks galleries. Martha was previously a curator at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and Hay’s five museums in regional New South Wales.

Jennifer Brian

Jennifer Brian is a conservator at the National Museum of Australia where she has worked to preserve and provide access to the collection for almost a decade. Jennifer is also an organologist and musician, specialising in baroque flute (traverso) and 19th-century flute performance of traditional musics. This dual passion for conservation and music has led to her PhD research studying the impacts of playing historic instruments in collections on their significance, sound and structure.

After travelling Europe recently for her fieldwork, attending conferences and interviewing experts in historic musical instrument care, conservation, making and use, Jennifer is incredibly excited to be involved in waking up the instruments in the Museum’s AE Smith collection. She is passionate about allowing these instruments to tell their story with their own voices and sharing this incredible moment in time.